Gazette, Daily Mail switching to Facebook comments

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Starting Monday afternoon, readers of the Gazette and Daily Mail websites will be able to comment on news stories through Facebook.

This will replace the system for online commenting already in place.

Readers who are logged into their Facebook accounts will be presented with a comment box at the bottom of select stories. Upon sharing their thoughts and/or interacting with friends or other readers, their Facebook photo and name will appear next to the comment.

Please note that a box underneath the comment field will need to be unchecked if you don't want your comment to show up on your personal Facebook wall.

Why are we making this change? For a couple of reasons:

First, while false Facebook accounts are a legitimate concern, most accounts are registered to the actual user, which means comments are tied to a real person rather than an anonymous screen name. It is our hope that this will raise the level of discourse on our websites.

Second, this will accelerate the pace of our online comments. Readers' reactions will appear on a story as soon as they are made. We will moderate the comments after they are posted, and if an offensive comment is made, a moderator in the newsrooms can remove it or even ban a user from ever commenting on the sites again.

Also, Facebook filters will be in place to weed out vulgar comments. The filters are, at times, a bit overzealous and might misinterpret words or parts of words as unacceptable. If you make a comment and it doesn't appear, it is awaiting moderation by someone here in our newsrooms.

Overall, we hope this improves the tone of the comments by providing accountability and makes your visit to our websites a better experience.